Terra Incognita (16 page)
A soft breeze rustled the new leaves of the oak. A movement to one side caught her attention and she saw a robin perched on the rock that marked the spring. It eyed her for a moment, then flew off.
It was not a clear message. But it was a sign that she had been heard. Tilla picked up her bag and set off along the stony path that led to her uncle’s house and to the place she had once called home.
She was walking behind a long shadow of herself. A chill in the breeze lifting the shawl reminded her that the night would be cold and that nothing in her bag would keep her warm. She quickened her pace.
She could see the house now. On her left was the flat land where the stream rested before taking its journey down the hill. Cows were grazing with their young around tufts of marsh grass. The far end of the field had been fenced off, and a couple of sheep were settling down for the night in the shelter of the hurdles. Beyond them, the field was empty. As she approached, she could see that someone seemed to have been digging up the ground. A pile of stone had been collected and dumped on the far side of the enclosure. Propped against the stone were a hand cart, two spades, and a pick. Drawing closer, she could make out orange rust on the blade of the pick.
Careless,
she thought. Da would never have allowed that. Tools were precious. They should be oiled and put away.
She dropped her bag into the long grass and leaned over the wall. Slashed through the rough turf in front of her were two long straight ditches that met at a right angle. Heavy foundation stones had been laid in them. The ditches followed lines marked out by twine stretched between wooden pegs. More twine and pegs formed the other sides of a large rectangle, with its long side facing south toward the path and out over the green valley. Tilla frowned. She knew what this was, but she had never seen anything like it here before. She could not imagine what Da would have said about it. Mam would have warned whoever it was about the anger of the gods. Her brothers would have scoffed. What a stupid place to put a grand Roman house.
She shouldered her bag again, calling out a greeting as she approached her uncle’s home. A skinny hound appeared from an outbuilding, rushed across the yard, and flung itself at the gate, barking furiously. She drew back. She and this dog did not know each other.
“Hush!” she urged it. “I have not come to hurt you!” But the animal could hear nothing over its own din.
From inside the round house, someone yelled at the dog to shut up. It took no notice. Moments later a lank-haired woman in a dingy tunic emerged, folded her arms, and shouted, “What do you want?”
Evidently the gods had not favored her uncle. This was not the standard of welcome—or of woman—anyone would have found here in the old days.
The woman snatched up a stick, shrieked, “Will you
shut up,
dog?” and strode down toward the gate. The animal saw her approach, gave a last defiant bark, and slunk away.
“He is a good guard dog,” remarked Tilla, not adding that he would be better if he were properly fed and trained by someone who knew what they were doing.
“He is a nuisance,” retorted the woman, placing a protective hand over the top of the gatepost. “What do you want?”
Tilla, dispensing with the usual greetings since the woman clearly knew nothing about politeness, said, “I have come to visit my uncle.”
“We haven’t got any uncles here.”
“Who is your master?” demanded Tilla, realizing with relief that this was a servant and not a wife.
The woman’s eyes narrowed. “We work for Catavignus the brewer.”
“Catavignus is my father’s brother. My family used to live up on the hill.”
The woman backed away. “That family are all dead. Killed.”
Tilla frowned. “How do you know this?”
“Everyone knows it.”
“Everyone is wrong,” she said. “My name is Darlughdacha, niece of Catavignus.” She could not help the smile from showing. “And I am come home at last!”
Instead of smiling back the woman looked around as if she was hoping someone would appear to tell her what to do. “I wouldn’t know,” she said. “We’ve only been here two years.”
“Where is my uncle?”
“He lives in town.”
“You mean outside the fort?”
“Near the bathhouse.”
Tilla stared at her in disbelief. “I have just come from there!” It seemed her uncle was in a house yards away from the one where she had left Lydia. She had walked all the way up here for nothing.
The woman eyed her for a moment. “I expect you’re wanting to come in, then?”
“I am tired.”
The woman shifted her hand on the gate. “I suppose, if you really are the master’s kin . . .”
“My uncle will thank you,” promised Tilla, hoping it was true.
The woman untwisted the frayed loop of twine that held the gate to the post. “The master doesn’t allow strangers on the land,” she explained, dragging the gate just wide enough to let Tilla squeeze through. “We don’t want trouble ’round here.”
Tilla had seen plenty of trouble here in the past, none of which would have been stopped by an inhospitable woman with a half-starved dog.
“We don’t want to get tangled up with the rebels,” said the woman, tying the gate and setting off up the yard toward the house. “The gods have sent us enough problems already. We sacrificed a lamb but it didn’t make any difference. My husband says we’re cursed.”
“What rebels?”
“There isn’t much to offer you. Only a drop of beer, or milk.”
“I will have milk,” said Tilla. “What rebels?”
The woman seemed surprised that she needed to ask the question. “I hear they
call
themselves warriors. Followers of some Messenger of Cernunnos.”
“I have seen him!”
The woman frowned. “I do not want to.”
Tilla followed her past a scrubby vegetable patch. The thatch above her uncle’s porch was collapsing and there were unfilled cracks in the walls. Evidently the curse these people were suffering from was laziness.
“Nobody knows the name of this messenger,” said the woman. “He wants to throw the army off our lands. His warriors turn up asking for hospitality and no sooner is it given than the soldiers come and arrest everyone for harboring criminals. Sometimes they burn the house and take all the livestock.”
“The warriors?”
“The soldiers. To teach a lesson. That’s why the master says we mustn’t let anyone in. If there’s any trouble here we will be turned out.”
“I have not come to cause trouble.”
“Wait there,” said the woman, pushing open the door and kicking something out of the way as she entered the house.
Tilla seated herself on a heavy log set under the eaves. Her feet were aching. Her shoulder was stiff from the weight of the bag. She leaned back against the cracked wall and closed her eyes. Last night’s grand room at the inn seemed a thousand miles away, and not so bad after all.
“This is all we have.”
Tilla opened her eyes to see a very small cup of milk being offered. She wondered if the household was genuinely short of milk. With three cows in the paddock, it did not seem likely. But perhaps Catavignus had most of his produce delivered into town.
“Nobody told us you were coming.”
“No,” agreed Tilla. “I am sure they did not.”
“My husband will have to talk to the master. This is only a poor house for servants now.”
“Who is building the house with corners?”
The woman frowned. “That house has nothing to do with us. We don’t know anything about it. The builders do as they please. We just look after the master’s land.”
“The house is for Catavignus?”
“He never said we were supposed to watch them. One day they were here putting in foundations, and the next they were gone. It’s not our fault.”
“I did not say it was.” Wearily, Tilla eyed the path that led back toward the fort. If she hurried, she could make it down to her uncle’s new house before the lamps were lit. She finished the milk and reached for her bag of damp clothes. “I thank you for the drink,” she said, getting to her feet. “There will be no need to talk to Catavignus. I shall see him myself.”
“We could make you up a bed,” said the woman, suddenly seeing a new reason to be anxious. “You must not tell the master we turned you away. Of course it would be a poor bed compared to what you are used to—”
“I am used to many things,” Tilla informed her. “And now I shall need to get used to having come back from the dead. But you have orders not to invite people in, and I will not ask you to disobey.”
“But—”
“There is no need to worry,” said Tilla. “I shall say nothing about you to my uncle.”
“But mistress—”
“I am not your mistress,” pointed out Tilla. “I am not anybody’s mistress anymore. But if I were, I would tell you that the thatch needs mending, those tools should be put away even if they are not yours, and someone needs to hoe the vegetable patch.”
“But what will the master say if he knows we let you wander off by yourself at sunset?”
“I don’t know,” said Tilla, swinging her bag onto her shoulder and heading for the gate. “Perhaps I shall be eaten by wolves on the way back, and then nobody but you will ever know, will they?”
T
HE SKY WAS
orange above the silhouette of the western hills by the time Ruso left Lydia in the infirmary with Postumus. The shutters of We Sell Everything had been pulled across. The barber’s shop was locked and there was no sound from the bathhouse. The awning outside the snack shop rose with a brief gust of wind, then collapsed again. It seemed everyone had gone to pay their last respects to Felix.
Ruso arrived at the small cemetery on the road out of town and slipped in at the back of the crowd gathered around the bier, glad of the approaching dusk. Distracted and late, he had not thought of changing into better clothes. Audax, easily distinguished by the centurion’s plume across his helmet, was standing at attention among the ranks of Batavians whose full formal turn-out displayed a polished range of antique but fearsome-looking weaponry. Over the heads of the crowd he saw the prefect move forward and step up onto some sort of platform.
As Decianus announced that every man was born mortal, Ruso was distracted by the gaggle of young women in front of him. Several were clinging to one another and sniffling. All seemed to have spent much time inconsolably wrecking their fancy hairstyles, and had he been closer, their torn mourning clothes might have revealed some interesting sights.
Decianus moved on to extol the virtues and the necessity of good military trumpeters, while Ruso craned to look around at the rest of the civilians. He wondered if Tilla had come to watch the funeral before delivering his supper. He would have asked her to visit Lydia, but in the fading light he recognized only Susanna from the snack bar and the barber’s wife.
Decianus was commending Felix as a true Batavian, a man of four years’ loyal service to Rome and to the Tenth and a man who would be much missed, when he was interrupted by a stray wail from one of the young women. There was an audible intake of breath from the crowd. Decianus ignored the intrusion and went on to explain that Felix was now freed from the pains and difficulties of life, and that we must all prepare ourselves—
Another wail rose into the air, followed by sobbing and furious hisses of “Sh!” Decianus was still talking, but quite possibly no one was listening as a plump and bedraggled female howled, “Oh, Felix!” The ensuing commotion suggested that either she had collapsed, or one of her wiser friends had wrestled her to the ground. Ruso sighed. Since everyone knew he was the doctor, he supposed he had better step forward.
Catavignus got there first. Evidently this was Aemilia, the daughter who was not well. Grabbing the apparently unconscious girl under the arms, he dragged her away from the mourners onto the grass beyond the gravestones. The angular woman Ruso had seen haggling with the butcher separated herself from the crowd and limped across to kneel beside her. Catavignus waved Ruso away. “We’ll just get her home, Doctor. This has been a very difficult day.”
As Ruso walked away from them he heard the slap of a hand on human flesh, and a wail of pain. Catavignus was administering his own treatment.
Ruso rejoined the funeral just as the speech came to an end. There was another blast of the trumpets. Decianus stepped up to the bier, raised a staff of office, and sprinkled something on the corpse, reciting a chant in what Ruso now recognized as Batavian. A fat man who had been blocking Ruso’s view shifted and for the first time he could make out the full shape of the body. Either the head had been found, or a convincing dummy placed under the shroud. A command was yelled, the troops saluted, the horns blared, and flames began to lick up around what remained of Felix the trumpeter.
Decianus stepped back and stood at attention. A couple of men moved the platform safely away from the flames. The fire cast a flickering light on the impassive features of Audax, who was watching the disappearance of the body that he had been guarding since early morning. Perhaps he was hoping that the fire had been well set, so that the flames would obscure what lay beneath when the shroud burned away. It took Ruso a while to spot Metellus. In the end it was not his face that betrayed his identity beneath the anonymous shell of the helmet, but his stance. All other eyes looking out from under the polished brims were trained on the pyre as Felix’s comrades oversaw his departure to the realms of the dead. Only the prefect’s aide was more interested in watching the crowd.
R
USO WAS ON
the way back to the infirmary for his first evening in charge, when he heard a familiar voice bawling orders. Exactly what the orders were was a mystery, since half of the syllables seemed to have been swept away in the tidal wave of sound, but the infantrymen tromping down the street understood the need to wheel right, march forward a few paces, and then halt.
“Dismissed!”
That was clear enough.
